I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.